Latest From California Healthline:

UnitedHealthcare is pulling out of Sacramento County’s Medi-Cal market, which could force 1,000 patients at UC Davis Medical Center to scramble for new primary care doctors. It’s a replay of three years ago, when Health Net and the university parted ways, leaving the medical center with no managed Medi-Cal contract for primary care. (Rob Waters,
9/26)

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Summaries Of The News:

Gov. Jerry Brown also signed a bill making it clear that rapid-fire "bump stocks" like those used in last year's Las Vegas Strip massacre are illegal in California. Meanwhile, a new study looks at Australia's hailed gun regulations, and the reason they would have limited effect in the U.S.

The Associated Press:
California Tightens Rules For Concealed Weapons, Bump Stocks
Californians will have to undergo at least eight hours of training, including live-fire exercises, before carrying a concealed weapon, under one of several firearms bills acted on by Gov. Jerry Brown. The bill helps standardize the state's current patchwork requirements for obtaining concealed weapons permits. It was among dozens of bills that the Democratic governor announced signing or vetoing Wednesday. (9/26)

Los Angeles Times:
Why Australia's Famed Gun Control Laws Probably Wouldn't Reduce Shooting Deaths In America
On a spring day in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, a lone gunman shot an elderly couple at the inn they owned, 22 diners lunching at a nearby tourist spot, two tour bus drivers and several of their passengers, four occupants of a BMW, and two customers at a gas station. By the time the bullets stopped flying on April 28, 1996, 35 people were dead and another 23 were wounded. It was the worst mass shooting Australia had ever seen. In a matter of months, Australia rolled out the National Firearms Agreement, which banned the possession of automatic and semiautomatic firearms in all but “exceptional circumstances.” (Kaplan, 9/26)

Project Baby Bear will work with infants on Medi-Cal from four different cities: Fresno, Oakland, Sacramento and San Diego. Blood samples will be dispatched to Rady Children's Hospital's high-speed sequencing lab in San Diego, where the institute’s team of geneticists will use custom software to quickly look for genetic markers of disease.

KPBS:
Test That Quickly Identifies Illnesses In Babies Expanding To More California Hospitals
Rady Children's Hospital Wednesday announced its participation in a new state-funded program to provide genome testing and sequencing to critically ill newborns. Under the $2 million Medi-Cal program titled Project Baby Bear, the hospital will use rapid whole-genome sequencing as a diagnostic test for babies in intensive care. Pediatricians from the Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine will administer genome sequencing as a diagnostic tool on babies at four participating hospitals statewide. (Hoffman, 9/26)

The San Diego Union-Tribune:
Rady Lands $2 Million Grant That Could Bring High-End Genetic Diagnosis To Kids On Medi-Cal
The goal is to derive genetic diagnoses for at least 100 children admitted to neonatal intensive care units (NICU) in their communities with severe but unexplained symptoms. Blood samples will be dispatched to Rady’s high-speed sequencing lab in San Diego, where the institute’s team of geneticists will use custom software to quickly look for genetic markers of disease. The institute recently set the Guiness world record for whole-genome sequencing, and is already working with several other children’s hospitals across the nation to make gene-based diagnoses as quickly as possible. Speed is of the essence because many children with severe seizures, metabolic disorders or other maladies often die before doctors can hit on the right combination of medications. (Sisson, 9/26)

The medical records of the teen were provided to the Desert Sun and show how he was treated while being kept in holding facilities. His family says his mental decline is the result of drugs he was given while in detention, without parental consent.

The Desert Sun:
Family Border Separations: Teen Immigrant's Mental Health Collapsed In Detention
Artemio spends a large portion of his days sleeping. When he's awake, the 18-year-old from Guatemala often stares blankly into the distance and repeats a set of mannerisms: He rubs his wrists as if they are sore and cradles his ribs as if he has a stomachache. He massages his collarbone and, one at a time, extends his knees and then relaxes them. He speaks only when he's asked a question, mumbling sentence fragments in response.
Fifteen months ago, Artemio's father, López, said his son was "100 percent well." The two traveled last summer from their home in the Guatemalan countryside to the California-Mexico border. When they crossed the border in Calexico, they asked immigration agents for asylum. Officials separated the father and son; Artemio spent the next 11 months in migrant youth detention facilities in San Diego and New York. (Plevin, 9/26)

In other news —

The California Health Report (healthycal.org):
Stress And Health Problems Plague Rural, Immigrant Communities Near The Border
Foreign-born immigrants in rural areas of the United States are facing grinding poverty, high levels of stress, discrimination and lack access to medical resources, putting their mental and physical health in jeopardy, according to a new study by the University of California, Riverside. Ann Cheney, an assistant professor with the university’s School of Medicine, led research in Southern California’s Eastern Coachella Valley, near the border with Mexico. Between 2015 and 2016, she and her team interviewed dozens of Mexican farmworkers, farmworker advocates, community leaders and health care providers about the challenges immigrants face and the effect these have on their health. (Boyd-Barrett, 9/26)

Starting no later than the middle of next year, Adventist patients wishing to speak with someone about their bill will be told to call a customer service center based in Missouri instead of speaking with someone face-to-face in Bakersfield.

The Bakersfield Californian:
Dozens More Jobs Being Cut At Adventist Health Bakersfield
Dozens more jobs will soon be eliminated at Adventist Health Bakersfield as the Chester Avenue hospital continues an outsourcing drive that has affected about 175 positions at the medical center since April. About 40 workers in the division known as patient financial services have been told their positions will be cut in the first or second quarters of next year, though some may be rehired in Missouri. An additional 20 employees would have been affected but they found other jobs within or outside the hospital. The affected employees do not include 13 to 15 lab assistant jobs being cut at the hospital effective Nov. 16, or the undisclosed number of local positions lost last year and early this year as Adventist cut some finance and human resources functions in Bakersfield. Fewer than 10 local workers eventually transferred to the company's headquarters in Roseville. (Cox, 9/26)

In other news —

Sacramento Bee:
UC Davis Medical Center Gets Interim Chief
Brad Simmons, the chief operating officer at UC Davis Medical Center, will take over as the interim chief executive officer of the teaching hospital as CEO Ann Madden Rice leaves to become president of Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis in mid-October. Simmons’ appointment is pending approval by the University of California Board of Regents. He has served as the second-in-command at the medical center since 2016. (Anderson, 9/26)

The National Institutes of Health is a big winner in the bill, which passed the House 361-61. The agency will see a 5 percent boost in its budget.

The Associated Press:
Congress Sends Bill To Trump To Avert Government Shutdown
Congress has approved a bill keeping the government open through Dec. 7, as lawmakers move to avert a government shutdown looming next week. The $854 billion bill also funds the military and a host of civilian agencies for the next year. The House approved the bill, 361-61, on Wednesday, a week after the Senate approved it, 93-7. (9/26)

The Washington Post:
Trump Pledges ‘We’ll Keep The Government Open’ Days Ahead Of Shutdown Deadline
President Trump pledged Wednesday that he would not allow the government to partially shut down next week, backing down from his demand that Congress appropriate billions of dollars for new construction of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Keeping the government open after Sunday would require Trump to sign a bipartisan spending bill from Congress, something he had resisted committing to for weeks. (Werner and Paletta, 9/26)

In other national health care news —

The Associated Press:
80,000 People Died Of Flu Last Winter In US
An estimated 80,000 Americans died of flu and its complications last winter — the disease's highest death toll in at least four decades. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, revealed the total in an interview Tuesday night with The Associated Press. Flu experts knew it was a very bad season, but at least one found the size of the estimate surprising. (9/26)

The New York Times:
Dozens Of Doctors Who Screen Immigrants Have Record Of ‘Egregious Infractions,’ Report Says
The doctors tapped by the federal government to medically screen immigrants seeking green cards include dozens with a history of “egregious infractions,” according to a report from a federal watchdog agency. The report looked at more than 5,500 doctors across the country used by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services as of June 2017 to examine those seeking green cards. More than 130 had some background of wrongdoing, including one who sexually exploited female patients and another who tried to have a dissatisfied patient killed, the report said. (Zaveri, 9/26)

The Hill:
Dems Want To Hold Officials’ Feet To The Fire On ObamaCare
Democrats say they will grill top Trump administration officials over what they say has been its efforts to “sabotage” ObamaCare, if they take back the House majority this fall and win committee chairmanships with subpoena power. While Democrats are unlikely to see significant health-care legislation enacted while President Trump is in the White House, they say they’ll work to advance several bills designed to “undo” the damage caused by the administration and build up the Affordable Care Act (ACA). (Hellmann, 9/27)

The Wall Street Journal:
More Young Veterans Committing Suicide, VA Data Show
The rate of suicide among young military veterans has increased substantially despite efforts by the Department of Veterans Affairs to curb the problem, though overall veteran suicides declined slightly, according to new data to be released Wednesday. The VA’s National Suicide Data Report paints a troubling picture for vets ages 18 to 34, for some troops who served in the National Guard or reserves, as well as female veterans. (Kesling, 9/26)

The New York Times:
Male, Female Or ‘X’: The Push For A Third Choice On Official Forms
Charlie Arrowood does not identify as male or female. So in January, when a new New York City law takes effect, they plan to modify the sex recorded on their birth certificate to one that fits: “X,” a gender-neutral option. Mx. Arrowood, who is transgender, changed both their name and sex on the certificate last year. But putting “male” instead of “female” on the document did not feel quite right either. (Newman, 9/27)